CLAY: This is cowardly, but probably not surprising: The State Department says they will not have a press briefing today. So we’re talking about the silence, the void, the absence of responsibility that we are seeing from the administration in control right now. The State Department just said, “We’re not talking at all to the American people.” Now, maybe the White House is going to have a press briefing.

Really what needs to happen, Buck — and I think you probably agree with me on this — is Joe Biden needs to go come out, directly address the American people, apologize for the failures of the Afghan evacuation, and he needs to personally call all of these Marine families certainly, at an absolute minimum. And we know they have a ton of people out there listening to us right now who have family, may have family serving in Afghanistan.

You’ve heard the news. Four Marines killed, three wounded in this explosion, worst fears confirmed. Remember, we hadn’t had any casualties in Afghanistan in 18 months, I think, if I’m correct about this, leading up to the evacuation. It had been fairly safe on the ground, and now everything has gone to complete hell, frankly, if you look at what’s going on right there. And we’re concerned that it may get worse from here. At least that’s what the data might suggest is where we are headed.

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CLAY: This is from Kyle Becker. He just put out this tweet a few minutes ago. “Breaking: Pentagon-connected source tells me as many as 13 U.S. service members are now believed killed, 20 troops wounded, 10 in critical condition.” That is the latest report that is out there right now. I will remind you, Buck Sexton, nothing from the White House, nothing from Joe Biden.

He has failed the American public. Just yesterday — and this is amazing. I want to read this headline that is out for you to react to, too, Buck. By the way, more people dying, American servicemen today in Afghanistan than in 2019 and 2020 combined, with our friend Alex Berenson who just tweeted that. But the overall situation just yesterday, there was a demand that…

They were asking for props, the Biden administration was, for all the evacuations they have done. Jen Psaki lying, bald-faced, every single day to the American people. And Joe Biden’s totally absent. I don’t know where it goes from here, Buck. But there are gonna be massive demands for Joe Biden to resign. I can’t imagine that he’s not gonna face impeachment inquiries in some level. I mean, this is gonna be ugly.

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BUCK: We’ve got reports of 13 Marines killed in Kabul from this double what appears to be suicide bombing. Obviously, there’s the tragedy that has already happened, the possibility of more attacks like this, a Biden administration that seems to just be spiraling into the depths of God knows where, and we have H. R. McMaster, who is formerly senior military officer, former national security adviser as well under Trump. Here he is saying that he… This is his assessment.

MCMASTER: So this is a ridiculous idea that this is really ISISK and gosh, the Taliban, must be really disappointed. That’s crazy, I think, Andrea. I’m sure that we will uncover evidence that this has happened with the full knowledge of Haqqanis and certainly elements of the Taliban at the most senior leadership.

BUCK: Clay, this is what I was saying before — it’s very tough to separate out — you have the Haqqani Network, long-standing jihadist terrorist group designated by U.S. government and terrorist group the program that has very close ties to Al-Qaeda, very close — very high-level — ties to the Taliban, almost indistinguishable in some ways from those organizations at the top leadership level.

That’s how close they are. So he’s saying that it’s former national security adviser it might have just been a faction of the Taliban or maybe the Haqqanis knew of this. He said the idea it was like just this ISISK group going against them… I mean, if the Taliban already is having splinter factions or some part of it that’s involved in this, this could get a lot worse very fast.

CLAY: I just… It’s an awful day. Let’s start here. An absolutely awful day for all Americans, certainly the worst possible day for anyone who has family that is serving in Afghanistan as they have to do to follow this story of the explosions which went off this morning — in the United States, our time this morning — outside of the Kabul airport. And as the numbers continue to grow.

The ticker now on Fox News says at least 12 U.S. service members killed. We had a report that we read that there are 13, 10 in critical condition. I don’t know how Joe Biden is looking at himself in the mirror right now, and I’m angry and I think probably a lot of you out there are angry, because this administration wanted us to praise them for how well they had been evacuating people from Afghanistan.

That was their message yesterday. They wanted their props for how many people they had evacuated. I saw Dan Crenshaw, I believe, make the analogy, saying, “This is like starting the largest forest fire ever and wanting criticized for helping to put it out.” Buck, you made the analogy, it’s like bragging about the evacuation from the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. This is an unmitigated disaster for Joe Biden.

This is Benghazi on steroids. This is Saigon in 1975 on steroids. And if you are an American and you are not furiously angry over the management of this situation, I, frankly, question whether you are paying an iota of attention to this at all. And if Democrats impeach Donald Trump because of a phone call with the Ukrainian president, what in the world should be the consequences for the Joe Biden administration follow this abject failure, that it’s still ongoing, Buck, and could get far worse before it’s gonna get any better?

BUCK: Right, and there’s what should happen, and then, Clay, you and I know on the political side of this — and it almost feels premature to even look at the politics of it right now, considering that we still have… I mean, to Lara Logan’s point, she says there is no timeline. I hope she’s correct. I know what she was saying, which is that the timeline should be until every American’s out, until every American is on U.S. soil or at least in a safe third country. I think the Biden administration — especially with what’s going on here, the deterioration in the security — is likely to keep to the timeline. I don’t see how they’re going to get around this.

CLAY: They might even try to and accelerate it, Buck, try to get our soldiers out even faster.

BUCK: And to the point about consequences and what will happen now and what comes next, I would just say, “Look…” (chuckles) “We don’t have a margin in the House. We certainly don’t have two-thirds in the Senate. There’s not gonna be impeachment and removal under this current Congress. We know that.” But what happens when things get so bad that it feels like Joe Biden should step down just for sheer reasons of incompetence? What is the mechanism there — and there really isn’t one other than the people around him having to impress upon him that it’s time for someone else to take the reins.

CLAY: And the thing of that is, Buck, Kamala’s actually less popular thank Biden!

BUCK: This is what I was gonna say, Clay, which is that Kamala’s going to a better job than Joe Biden with this?

CLAY: Right.

BUCK: You’d have to say, “Based on what would we think this?” and I think people are now looking for this. Does anyone feel better when they see Joe Biden going on TV just with these very scripted statements?

CLAY: He can barely walk, Buck.

BUCK: Does anyone feel like there’s any fear that the toolbox is going to feel like there could be consequences for crossing? I don’t think so.

CLAY: Donald Trump would have rained down holy hell on whoever is responsible for this attack — and significantly, they would have known that Donald Trump was going to rain down holy hell on whoever did this attack. I think George W. Bush would have. I don’t think there’s any doubt. I think you can criticize Barack Obama, but I think he was competent enough to look at the evidence and make, against Joe Biden’s advice, the choice to kill Osama Bin Laden!

Remember, Joe Biden advised Barack Obama not to kill bin Laden. That was when he actually had a functional brain. Every time Joe Biden has make a decision throughout American history, just about, he makes the wrong one. And that was when his brain worked. This is an embarrassment to our country, it’s a tragedy — and this man, Joe Biden, is still not saying a word.

They’re not gonna have a State Department briefing today. There’s a void of leadership. There’s an absence of speech. I’m outraged, and I know most of you out there are too. And I think even, Buck, a lot of independents and a lot of Democrats that still have functional brains are outraged over this absence of leadership, this void, this failure as well. I really believe it.

BUCK: I think it’s worse than anybody could have anticipated. Even assuming what we knew about Biden beforehand was true, this field like even more so. This feels like we’re in a situation now where it was, Clay, a chaotic and messy evacuation process, and now it’s lethal and destabilized and could get a whole lot worse in the next few days. And looking around at the options here, when you’ve lost…

I’m seeing on Fox they’re saying at least 12 U.S. service members killed. We’ve also seen 13. Terribly, this always happens in these instances where there’s an initial report of a terrorist attack especially talking about suicide bombing, something like that. The casualty numbers just tend to go up as the hours pass by. Have we heard anything from the Biden administration about what the plan is here or what the next move is?

CLAY: No! That’s what I’m saying. Zero! It’s an embarrassment. It’s a complete failure of American leadership. Lara Logan was on our show and was more eloquent addressing this situation than anybody in the Biden White House has been for two freaking weeks, and it’s hard for me not to curse right now because of the incompetence and how furious I am about that incompetence and what is actually ending up happening here.

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BUCK: We got Brad in Augusta, Georgia. Brad, tell us what you’re doing to try to help.

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call. I want to first say thanks for all you’re doing. Thanks to Senator Tom Cotton. My condolences for the Marines that were killed. I spent a lot of years in the U.S. military. Buck, we have not a similar background, but we both worked in intelligence. And as you know when you go overseas and you develop assets, you have networks of friendships that last forever.

So we’ve been back-channeling right now. There was a fellow on the ground there that was helping do the manifest. And what we’ve been doing is basically since the State Department has been stonewalling us… First off, I’m angry. I’m really angry. Where is my president? I want to know where my president is. Where is the commander-in-chief?

Where are all these generals that will sign letters about phone calls about Donald Trump but won’t say when American soldiers are being killed, American Marines and sailors are being killed. Where are they? So we had to do it ourselves. So we’ve activated what we call our spook network, and what we’ve been doing is we’ve been basically fat fingering in SIVs that have been sitting and waiting and couldn’t get out through State Department paperwork, and just putting them on the manifest directly.

And I don’t know if anybody really cares one way or another, but, you know, this is just a colossal failure, and what we don’t understand is, “Why is it up to us?” Why is it up to guys like me and Glenn Beck and people like that, who’s doing a lot more than we’re doing? But so far, we’ve gotten somewhere near 800 people out that way. We basically are sneaking ’em onto the manifest.

CLAY: Well, thank you for that. Thank you for that work. It’s a shame. Thank you for the call. It’s a shame that this is how much of a leadership failure we have. I appreciate everybody who is pitching in and doing everything that they can to get our people and our allies out of Afghanistan. But that’s what a void and absence of leadership creates. It’s this chaotic situation where everybody’s trying to do their best but doesn’t trust the commander-in-chief to be able to make a rational decision in real time.

Buck, this is a long time to not have heard a word from Joe Biden or anybody in the White House. We’ve been doing a three-hour show, we’ve been updating people all throughout the day on the tragedy circumstances that have befallen so many of our servicemen in Afghanistan. And the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, is totally an empty suit. He’s absent.

BUCK: Clay, is there also the possibility that I think is present that they know that right now putting Joe Biden out there with the talking points is not gonna make people feel better? On the one hand ,we want to see the president of the United States because he’s the president. But I think there’s also concern that this is the commander-in-chief we have now in this moment? (chuckle) It’s just… The whole thing is hard to believe, honestly. It’s hard to believe that this is where we are, the Biden-Kamala team are running this situation right now or in charge of this, and it’s just deteriorating. It’s getting worse every day.

CLAY: I don’t even know, Buck. I will say this. I think we’ve been unkind to Jimmy Carter in calling Joe Biden Jimmy Carter 2.0. I would love for Joe Biden to be Jimmy Carter 2.0 right now. I think he’s like James Buchanan 2.0 right now. For the history nerds out there, that’s the president before Abraham Lincoln as the Civil War was unfolding.

The guy did nothing to try to hold the country together. That’s what I think Joe Biden is. He’s not Jimmy Carter 2.0. He’s James Buchanan 2.0. I can’t think… Can you, Buck? I mean, we’re 40 years old, two generations-ish. I can’t think of a more impotent, weak, worthless American president that we have had in my life. I mean, this is shameful.

BUCK: Yeah, and unfortunately… I mean, we’re sitting here, Clay, we’re talking about it, and I think there is this urge to feel like, well, at least, you know, it’s gotta… (sigh) Now they’re gonna be on it. They’re gonna focus, they’re gonna…

CLAY: Rain down holy hell? No.

BUCK: They can turn this around in the next few days. I don’t know how they really make the situation… Yes, they’re gonna continue the evacuations, but the security situation on the ground? Our hands are largely tied. They gave up Bagram air base. They made all these horrible errors in the process.

CLAY: We’re relying on terrorists to protect our troops, and we just saw what that got you — and what is so frustrating about this, Buck, is this is what we said for two weeks was gonna happen!

BUCK: John in Columbia, South Carolina. John, how you doing?

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate everything you guys are doing. I’m gonna try to take anger out of the situation here but first off and foremost, all my prayers go with the family and friends of those Marines.

CLAY: For sure.

CALLER: So by way of you background, I was a counterintelligence, counterthreat Air Force officer in eastern Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009. And my (unintelligible) interpreter — and for those listening at home, that means an interpreter from the United States, an Afghan, who actually volunteered to go back home to interpret for us. He gave me a call last week and told me that he had family members.

Actually, his fiancee and her two brothers were stuck outside of Kabul airport. So we started working and kind of like the last caller said (chuckles), we worked our spook network as well. I called all my senators and congressmen who were very responsive and they kept telling me, “It’s the State Department, the State Department, the State Department issue.”

We lost contact with them on Friday, thought they were captured, killed. We didn’t know what. Come to find out we got contact with them this morning, and they were saying that they’re just trying to get to the airport. They can’t get in. These folks are on SIV visas, and they couldn’t get in because the Afghan commandos — and there are no Marines at the gates. The Afghan commandos at the gates at the airport are telling them, “Until the Americans call us, we can’t let you in.” So then later after that I was contacted by a State Department liaison, and I won’t give his name —

BUCK: John, we’ve only got about 30 seconds anybody; so please just give us what you can.

CALLER: Yeah, he was a Marine. He said, “I’m doing my best. I can’t do anything else. I’m trying my best.” I called him back later in the day and he was apoplectic. He was almost in tears saying, “There’s nothing else we can do. Everyone’s pulling out.”

BUCK: John (sigh), it’s a really tough situation. Appreciate you sharing that perspective.